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Javier López


Javier López has been a Spanish member of the European Parliament since 2014. He is chair of its delegation to the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly and a member of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.

Javier López

The assault on the skies by the far right

Javier López 27th February 2024

The far right is preying on the fears of the vulnerable ahead of June’s elections. Progressives must tackle the causes of its rise.

Europe under quarantine

Javier López 20th March 2020

The coronavirus crisis has exposed the shared vulnerability of Europe’s interdependence. Time to turn that into a strength.

The green agenda—a social and geopolitical tool

Javier López 17th December 2019

The European green agenda is key to saving the planet—but it could also save an enlightenment-based multilateral order from nationalist irrationalism.

Electoral Authoritarianism, Elective Dictatorship

Javier López 12th November 2018

Jair Bolsonaro will be President of Brazil. A homophobic soldier with authoritarian excesses, who has scorned democratic mechanisms and threatened his political rivals, will lead the greatest regional power in Latin America that is now a global giant. In fact, his profile, a caricature of a third-rate dictator, would be comical if it weren’t for […]

Inequality More Than Matters

Javier López 7th December 2017

Inequality is the biggest challenge of our time. It undermines social confidence and reduces support for democratic institutions. It lurks behind the new toxic relationship that western societies have established with their future and explains much of recent resentment-driven electoral phenomena and the surge of identity politics with its disruptive backlash. As for the economic […]

Democracy Without Glue

Javier López 20th July 2017

The aftershocks of the Great Recession are still being felt. The trail of suffering in the shape of unemployment and destruction of wealth has transformed the map-making of the western world, ending up by provoking a real geopolitical recession with an Anglo-American epicentre aka the cradle of global capitalism. Likewise, the coordinates of the political […]

The Geopolitics Of Chaos

Javier López 23rd March 2017

The new world disorder is under way while speculation about what President Trump would do has given way to a spate of executive orders. The cocktail of reactionary withdrawal from previous commitments (Trump + Brexit is imposing a change of guard on international relationships, leaving the northern hemisphere turned upside down. The neoliberal economic and […]

Europe And The Globalization Of Unrest

Javier López 13th December 2016

Donald Trump’s victory has sent the liberal world order into a tailspin. We are not just facing a wake-up call; this wave of authoritarian national populism with shades of protectionism has stormed the castle walls. A racist president, unpredictable and misogynist, who defends a white isolated “America”, is about to take leadership of the first […]

The Decline Of The European Empire

Javier López 14th June 2016

While Europe was engrossed in facing up to the Euro crisis, all around it the greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War was deepening. The management of the Great Recession has impoverished the continent and is polarizing it but the refugee crisis is the first that affects the center and not just the periphery. […]

A High Seas Disgrace That Should Shake Us Into Action

Javier López 21st April 2015

Europe cannot afford the shame of doing nothing while thousands of migrants die in the Mediterranean simply seeking a better life. There have been more than 1000 deaths in the past few days alone. What northern Africa is currently going through is the biggest refugee crisis since World War II. If the European institutions do […]

Europe Is Back At Square One

Javier López 24th October 2014

Europe is back at square one. On the verge of a third recession in five years, the relentless tide is even crashing against the insurmountable walls of the German factory powerhouse. Stagnation yet again in the Eurozone – this time accompanied by a certain whiff of Japanese-style deflation. Once more the markets are getting nervous: a volatile […]

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Spring Issues

The Spring issue of The Progressive Post is out!


Since President Trump’s inauguration, the US – hitherto the cornerstone of Western security – is destabilising the world order it helped to build. The US security umbrella is apparently closing on Europe, Ukraine finds itself less and less protected, and the traditional defender of free trade is now shutting the door to foreign goods, sending stock markets on a rollercoaster. How will the European Union respond to this dramatic landscape change? .


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss European defence strategies, assess how the US president's recent announcements will impact international trade and explore the risks  and opportunities that algorithms pose for workers.


READ THE MAGAZINE

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WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

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The Politics of Unpaid Work

This new book published by Oxford University Press presents the findings of the multiannual ERC research project “Researching Precariousness Across the Paid/Unpaid Work Continuum”,
led by Valeria Pulignano (KU Leuven), which are very important for the prospects of a more equal Europe.

Unpaid labour is no longer limited to the home or volunteer work. It infiltrates paid jobs, eroding rights and deepening inequality. From freelancers’ extra hours to care workers’ unpaid duties, it sustains precarity and fuels inequity. This book exposes the hidden forces behind unpaid labour and calls for systemic change to confront this pressing issue.

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